Family Talk

Dr. James Dobson: You’re listening to Family Talk, the radio broadcasting division of the James Dobson Family Institute. I am that James Dobson and I’m so pleased that you’ve joined us today.

Roger Marsh: Well, welcome to Family Talk. I’m Roger Marsh. America does have a rich Christian heritage. It’s woven into the very symbols our founding fathers left behind. Few are more familiar than the Great Seal of the United States, but also few are more misunderstood as well.

On today’s edition of Dr. James Dobson’s Family Talk, we’re continuing Dr. Dobson’s fascinating conversation with historical author Michael Canis. On our last program, Michael revealed the subliminal imagery our founders purposely placed within the Great Seal. On today’s program, he’ll uncover even deeper meaning: the providential care of God, virtue, unity, and freedom, and what these truths mean for our nation today. Here now is the conclusion of that conversation as we begin today’s edition of Dr. James Dobson’s Family Talk.

Michael Canis: Dr. Dobson, as with all symbolism, there’s often multiple layers of symbolism. In our seal is very much intertwined the message of the covenant. We began to talk about that a little bit when we were referring to the phrase "annuit coeptis."

The olive branch is also referring to the coming branch. That’s the prince of peace. In an extended sort of metaphor, without going into too much detail, there’s a lot of depth in meaning there. But another way that we see that coming through is in that phrase "novus ordo seclorum," which many people interpret that as the New World Order, but it doesn’t mean that. It actually means New Order of the Ages.

It is taken from again from the poet Virgil and it’s taken from his series of poems called the Eclogues. This is from the fourth Eclogue, the fifth verse. The poem goes like this: "Now is the final era of Sibyl’s song. The new order of the ages born afresh. Honored rule returns, justice returns. A new lineage come down from high heaven. The boy rules what once was iron in a new golden age."

Dr. James Dobson: You’ll have to interpret that for me.

Michael Canis: Okay, let’s take a look at that for just a moment. But first, you have to come with me on a little trip if we could, into the Sistine Chapel. There you and I, Dr. Dobson, will walk about halfway down and we’ll look up at the ceiling. There we’ll see that famous fresco of Michelangelo Buonarroti with God creating Adam. Remember that one?

Dr. James Dobson: Oh my goodness, I’ve stood there and gaped at it a number of times and it never ceases to inspire me.

Michael Canis: Yes, and right there kind of kitty-corner adjacent to that fresco, first you have the Prophet Isaiah and Daniel, and right there near those two, there’s a picture of a woman painted there, Dr. Dobson. Her name is Sibyl Cumae.

You might think with me, why in the world would there be a picture of a woman painted there on the Sistine Chapel next to God and Daniel and Ezekiel? She’s there because the Pope, Pope Julius, believed that she had given a Christological prophecy 500 BC. That was the prophecy that I just gave to you, that it was talking about the coming of the Son of God, the new lineage come down from high heaven.

So that was the reason that he commanded her picture to be painted up there. So when you look at the phrase "novus ordo seclorum" in the context of the poem that was a prophecy from Sibyl Cumae, you know right away that that new order that is being discussed on the seal is the coming kingdom of God and the righteous rule and reign of Jesus Christ on Earth.

Dr. James Dobson: Now you said in the beginning that the seal is an allegory or a representation of an allegory. What are the two symbols here that it’s referring to?

Michael Canis: Okay, the allegorical message is a compilation of all of the 18 or 19, depending on how you count them, symbols in the seal. So there’s four main strains in the allegorical message. They are the providential care of God, virtue, unity, and freedom. Those themes are expressed over and over again in different ways from different perspectives.

Dr. James Dobson: The complexity of this seal and of our money, of the dollar bill and the other currency, is just phenomenal. That was not done primarily by artists, it was done by founding fathers.

Michael Canis: Well, it absolutely was. That’s exactly right. The seal, when the report was submitted to Congress, that first committee, that design was not adopted at that moment by Congress. It would only take them two or three weeks to actually put that together. The seal was continued and it was referred to another committee and another.

Finally in 1782, in May, the war was winding down and Congress was realizing that they were going to be needing this seal for the Treaty of Paris and all the things that were happening with the winding down of the war. So they said, we’ve got to get this done. Dr. Dobson, you know how it is that God seems to appoint men for just such a time. He has them in waiting. Well, his man for the hour was a man by the name of Charles Thompson.

He was the Secretary of Congress from the First Continental Congress in 1774, 15 years right through to the end to 1789 when he retired from Congress. The only member of Congress to have served that entire period of time. He was quite an extraordinary individual, Scotch-Irish, and was an expert in Latin. He had memorized many of these Latin poems.

Dr. James Dobson: He doesn’t show up in history much. I’ve never heard his name.

Michael Canis: No sir, he’s called the forgotten founding father. But perhaps one of the most significant figures in the founding of this new country. In fact, he served a pivotal role in the formation of the First Continental Congress.

Our idea of a secretary today is sort of an administrative person, but that’s not the way it was back then. The Secretary of Congress was quite a significant role. As a matter of fact, the President of Congress was sort of the equivalent of the President of the country. It’s a completely different role, but he served that role several times in the absence of the president and filling in the roles.

So quite an extraordinary man, but very steeped in scripture. As a matter of fact, he translated the first English translation of the Septuagint, which if you’ll recall, the Septuagint took 70 scholars years to translate from the original Greek into English. But Charles Thompson did it single-handedly, quite an extraordinary feat. He knew the scriptures inside and out, backward and forward. He infused all that knowledge of Latin and scriptures into the seal.

Dr. James Dobson: Give me the bottom line of what you have discovered and why you’re so excited about it. Because these are not just the thoughts of these great men saying, I think it would be a good idea to put 13 arrows in the claw of the eagle. There was significance to everything done here. What’s the bottom line?

Michael Canis: There’s three very encouraging things. I’m absolutely encouraged and just feel so positive about the fact that this is coming to light now. Because it is coming to light now, God’s timing is perfect. He’s revealing the truths that are in this seal: the call to virtue, the call to unity, at a time when it couldn’t be more needed. I think you’d agree with me on that, Dr. Dobson.

The other thing that’s so encouraging is that it’s God our Father calling us back to him. That original desire for him, for intimacy with him, and to be an observer of the covenant and to do what’s pleasing to him. It’s Father calling us to himself for restoration and healing and wholeness for the country. That’s very encouraging.

The third reason that I’m so excited about it is because of the call to virtue. The message for virtue is throughout the seal, and continually and repeatedly there’s this cadence of the call bringing us back to virtue. It is a common theme in all the letters of the founders, that a republic requires virtue in order to function.

One of the authors that I’ve studied in conjunction of the seal is Montesquieu. He taught that democracies and republics function on a motor or a spring that drives them. For republics, that motor is virtue, and without virtue, a republic ceases to function.

Dr. James Dobson: John Adams said the same thing. This is intended for a virtuous people. It’s wholly inappropriate for any other people or any other way of life, any other thought. You are so right about that. In fact, the reason that virtue, Dr. Dobson, is so important is because people must be governed on the inside because if they’re not, then they must be governed externally.

So Michael, doesn’t it sort of disturb you as it does me that we have leaders, and maybe the majority of them, who seem to want to walk away from this historical understanding of who we are and how we got here, and of the faith of our founding fathers, and to deny that they even believed in God?

Michael Canis: Well, there’s a confusion here, Dr. Dobson, because virtue is the character of God. Ultimately, all virtues are expressed by love. Somehow we have, as a people, equated virtue with religion. Because we’ve tried to separate the church, really from all of society, not just the public sphere, you can’t even pray at a football game seems like anymore.

But we’ve done that without realizing that in one brush, we’ve included virtue together with religion and we’ve banished virtue from the public square, which should never happen. It is the absolute wrong thing. It’s going in 180 degrees the wrong direction.

Dr. James Dobson: And we do so at our peril.

Michael Canis: Well, we see the effects of it. See, what happens is when we lose virtue, we lose freedom. So as we give up more and more virtue, we become a less free society. You can see it measured on almost every level. Economically, politically, once we go down that road and we give up those freedoms, something else will take its place.

Dr. James Dobson: Nature abhors a vacuum. You remove one way of thinking, and something else will take its place.

Michael Canis: Right. And the core of what is driving our values is really love in a loving God. To divorce ourselves from that, what replaces it is not love. It’s something else.

Dr. James Dobson: I would like our listeners to especially pay attention to what I’m about to say right now. This is not original with me, but it is available. It’s a concept that we ought to all know about. The Constitution gives us the freedoms. The Bill of Rights resulted in these fundamental freedoms and one of them, as a matter of fact, the first one, is the freedom of religion. Freedom to believe what we wish.

The Democratic Party has tried to change that Constitution, not by changing the wording but changing the meaning of it. Instead of freedom of religion, it’s becoming the freedom of worship. It’s a big difference because freedom of worship relates to what you do in a church. So we’re free to do that, thanks a lot. We can go to our own churches and worship God and pray, but we can’t do so in the public square.

The difference between the two is night and day, and we have to be constantly alert to these efforts to undermine and erode this wonderful document that was provided, I think, under the inspiration of the Heavenly Father that provided the foundation for this country. If we walk away from it, turn our back on it, and refuse to worship the God of the universe, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, we will pay a price for it and we will not survive.

That’s my belief. I’m no prophet. I don’t know when that’s coming, but I do believe we’re moving in that direction and that concerns me greatly.

Michael Canis: Well, I think also one of the very important things to note about that, Dr. Dobson, is that you can’t do things in a vacuum. There are consequences for everything. If individuals don’t have the right of conscience and to express their heartfelt beliefs, then there’s consequences that come along with that.

I don’t think we would want to remove the expression of religion, the right for individuals to express their consciences and their beliefs because that’s what drives so much of the good that’s done in America. You simply cannot remove the right of full expression of religion without removing the good that religion does in America.

Dr. James Dobson: That’s why I see it as somewhat sinister when people try to change the Constitution just by removing a single word and replacing it with one having different meaning. That’s not accidental. That is saying, go ahead and worship, you’re free to do so and do so on your own terms, but don’t try to do it publicly. Do it privately. It’s freedom of worship instead of freedom of religion.

Michael Canis: Well, that was certainly never the intent of the founders. If you read the letter from Thomas Jefferson in which he’s talking about the wall of separation, that is the farthest thing from his mind. When you actually look, he’s actually trying to protect the right of individuals.

Dr. James Dobson: The infamous letter to the Danbury Baptists, creating that wall of separation. People really believe that. They believe that it is freedom from religion, not freedom for religion.

Michael Canis: Yes. And it is the government with the complete absence of moral integrity or moral principles, and it’s a private or individual thing only. That’s not the way the founding fathers intended it.

Dr. James Dobson: Now Michael, what is the essence of this message? Does it matter that we understand the Seal of the United States? Does it make any difference that there is symbolism in there that has a spiritual integrity to it? What does this mean is what I’m asking.

Michael Canis: Thank you. It’s absolutely vital, Dr. Dobson, because the message of this seal is that we must walk in integrity, in virtue, to behave in a way that’s not for our own purpose, to fulfill our own desires, but for something higher, for something more. We have to reject selfish motivation. That’s also called corruption for something that’s higher and greater.

The more that we engage in our lives with each other and in our official capacities in whatever way that they are, the more virtue and integrity that we’ll have, the less corruption and the better our society will function. That’s number one.

Number two, God’s providential care of the nation is contingent on our relationship with him. How do we behave? Because God can bless certain types of behaviors and he has to withhold his blessing under certain other types of behaviors. So if we don’t understand God’s covenantal love and his providential care of us, when we break the covenant, we break our relationship with God and then we hinder him from blessing us.

The third theme of the seal, I call them the four pillars, this is the third pillar, of unity means that when we use division for political ends, it weakens our country. Unity means that we pick that common core of values that we hold as Americans and we champion those. We don’t allow them to be trampled on.

Dr. James Dobson: But they are being trampled and we are divided and we’re no longer E pluribus unum, out of many, one. We were intended for a nation to be unified, even though it had different values and different interpretations and different understandings, we were one people because of that spiritual common denominator. That is essentially gone. I hate to admit it, but it’s gone.

Michael Canis: But it doesn’t have to be.

Dr. James Dobson: Well, where do we start? With a revival, right?

Michael Canis: We do. I think the essential component of any change that’s going to happen is the same that we all know. That if my people—and who’s he talking to? He’s talking to Christians, isn’t he? Believers—who are called by my name.

That doesn’t just mean do you call yourself a Christian. When we receive God’s name, that means that we’re part of the family, sons and daughters of God. So if my people who are called by my name will humble themselves. What happens when we humble ourselves? We’re willing to be taught, we’re willing to be corrected, we’re willing to change our course and do something new, and that something new has to be focused on God and what pleases him.

Then what will happen? I will hear from heaven and heal their land. So that’s the beginning of it, I have no doubt. But we still live in a country, Dr. Dobson, where there’s all different kinds of religions, all different kinds of backgrounds, all different ethnicities and belief systems.

But that doesn’t change the fact that we all share common values. Those are the virtues that we hold dear. It’s not hard to find those in common. They’re out there all over the place. We constantly admire things in people when we see kindness and generosity.

So for us to forget that virtue does not have to be ejected from discourse and the public square and from the courthouse and anywhere else it shows up, but to embrace it, to me, that is probably the first step in the road back to being a country that pleases God.

Dr. James Dobson: The Declaration of Independence says we hold these truths. Truths and virtues are pretty much the same thing, aren’t they? We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, endowed by the Creator with certain unalienable rights, among them life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Man, what a statement.

Michael Canis: And see, that word liberty is there and that is a vital component of the seal. Remember I told you there’s four parts? Well, that was the final one that I hadn’t mentioned yet was freedom or liberty.

Without knowing the truth, it’s truth that sets you free. An individual can’t operate in freedom while being deceived at the same time. It’s impossible to make a right choice if you don’t know what’s true. So unless we operate in truth and make our decisions with the right mind and a reasoned eye toward what virtue is, then we can’t make right decisions. Then those decisions get taken away from us and then we’re back into a situation where governance is imposed from the outside.

Dr. James Dobson: It come from the mind of mortal man. It just, it’s amazing what they handed to us and we’re throwing it away. There’s so much here, Michael, we could talk another year I think on this subject. You’ve spent two and a half years studying it and I thank you for investing that effort. You’ve now got it in a book. What’s the name of the book?

Michael Canis: It’s called The Hidden Message of the Great Seal. Then it has a subtitle: How Foundational Truth from the Dawn of Liberty May Rescue a Republic in Peril.

Dr. James Dobson: I’m asking our listeners to pray for you that that book will become widely read and that our discussion today will have motivated a lot of people to understand their own history as a nation by looking into the work of the founding fathers and especially in this context, the Great Seal of the United States. Blessings to you, Michael. Thanks for coming and for sharing these thoughts with us. I’ve been inspired by them.

Michael Canis: Oh, me too. What a great conversation. Thank you so much for having me.

Roger Marsh: You know, it’s truly remarkable to think that the truths of providence, virtue, unity, and freedom were quietly woven into our nation’s most enduring symbol. Today on Dr. James Dobson’s Family Talk, we heard part two of a conversation featuring Dr. Dobson and historical author Michael Canis.

Now if you’d like to revisit today’s program or share it with a friend, you’ll find it along with a link for Michael’s book called The Hidden Message of the Great Seal at JDFI.org. You know, just as our founding fathers understood that a free nation depends on people of virtue, this ministry depends on faithful friends like you as well.

Right now, your gift goes twice as far through our $250,000 July matching grant in honor of America’s 250th anniversary. Every dollar you donate will be matched dollar for dollar through July 31st. To double your impact, give securely online at JDFI.org or call a member of our constituent care team at 877-732-6825. That’s 877-732-6825.

Well, I’m Roger Marsh and on behalf of all of us here at Family Talk and the Dr. James Dobson Family Institute, thanks so much for listening today. Be sure to tune in again next time right here for another edition of Dr. James Dobson’s Family Talk, the voice you trust for the family you love.

Dr. James Dobson Family Institute: This has been a presentation of the Dr. James Dobson Family Institute.